Stacks o' Wax #24

Alfred HitchcockMusic to Be Murdered By(Imperial Records #9052; 1958)

Sadly, I'm still on the lookout for a decent copy of this one (I believe there is a CD, but I'd rather have trusty old vinyl), but from what I understand it's largely a collection of vaguely menacing mood music. Hitchcock does wry intros for each track, and I've tracked down a couple of those.

From the liner notes: "These days a murder is amusing for the onlookers and the murderer but no one thinks of making things pleasant for the victim. He may be a tiresome bore but he is still rather essential and is entitled to some consideration. Music, I feel, will heighten his appreciation and make his own murder the truly ennobling experience it should be."

I doubt if anyone except Alma Reville Hitchcock knew what made him tick, either as an artist or as a human being. Once he fixed it on himself, the mask rarely, if ever, slipped (though it would seem to on a few occasions).

Hitchcock was in fact so steadfast in the maintenance of that persona over time that I've come to believe its very creation, the sheer willfulness of it, was a critical factor in his own sense of himself as an artist (apart from its spectacularly successful marketing dimension). Other words, he knew he needed whatever cover it gave him in order to survive in that business and accomplish what he did.

Hitchcock expert Drew Casper talks about exactly what Tom says, that the Hitchcock persona was a mask and a shield, which really blossomed once he came to the U.S. and started dealing with U.S. producers, and he realized he'd have to build up a public identity if he wanted the kind of leverage he'd need to make his films his way.

If you asked the average moviegoer of the '40s and '50s to name a film director, I wonder who they could come up with besides Hitchcock, Cecil B. DeMille, Frank Capra and John Ford. Maybe Lubitsch (in the '30s, anyway) and Von Stroheim.

I'll tell you what I've told everyone else who's attempted to make an issue of this over the last five years:

The author of that title, grammatical errors and all, was Charles Mingus (it was the provisional title for a composition better known as 'Gunslinging Bird'). Normally I would suggest you take it up with him, but . . . he rode on ahead about three decades ago.

I think a few moviegoers of the time could have named Orson Welles, too, who shows the limitations of building a persona as leverage with producers. Still, that's an interesting question. Hawks and Fritz Lang may have had some name recognition as well. Perhaps just as interesting asked the other way -- how many moviegoers would have recognized the name Michael Curtiz? Or even Vincente Minelli? Could one in a thousand recognize the name Boetticher?

Short answer is No. Most of the public still doesn't know Budd Boetticher. In fact, I'd even go further and say that most of the people who've seen Budd Boetticher's movies don't know (or care) who he is/was. There were very very few famous movie directors in that period. Capra, DeMille, Stroheim, Chaplin, Hitchcock, Ford, Wilder; maybe one or two others (Welles was famous as an actor more than as a director . . . a distinction he shared with Ida Lupino and, later, John Cassavetes).

According to Patrick McGilligan's biography, Fritz Lang at one point tried to mount a PR offensive to counter Hitchcock's 'Master of Suspense' brand. He wanted to be known as the 'Master of Psychology' . . . this when he was making pictures like 'Rancho Notorious' and 'American Guerilla in the Philippines'. It didn't take.

As famous as some directors were, Hitchcock vaulted over them all, however (with the possible exception of Cecil B. DeMille, who appeared onscreen enough to be recognizable to the general public) when he started hosting the television show. That's when he literally became a full-on trademark.